[…] completely and use UNSCOM and sanctions to police the country, at the same time covertly encouraging groups which would be in a position to stage a military coup. This was not enough for some: on 26 January 1998 Clinton received a letter calling for the removal of Saddam Hussein because he is a ‘hazard […]
Ben Pimlott Harper Collins, London 1992, £20 At one level, this deserves the plaudits it has received. It is a belting good read, such a good read, in fact, that I had got as far as 1967 before I realized that there was no mention of Lord Cromer, the Governor of the Bank of England … Read more
Peter Taylor has made more TV programmes about Northern Ireland since 1969 than other any British journalist. His most recent was the documentary, Loyalists, earlier this year, a series of interviews with Loyalist paramilitaries and politicians. This was followed by a book, Loyalists (Bloomsbury, 1999), which contained some of the interviews in that programme. Like … Read more
[…] hope to desperate men. Moscow promised not to invade Poland if the Church could dampen the struggle (and, presumably, give the Polish Stalinists time to organise the coup). Some Grey Wolves came to believe that if the infidel Pope would not inflame anti-communist revolt, it would be better if he was assassinated in a […]
[…] the covert policy.’ In other words Marshall wanted a covert capability outside of his department but still answerable to his guidance. In the aftermath of the Czech coup (the Czechs having been forced to decline Marshall Aid by the USSR the year before), covert operations were further coordinated with the creation of the Office […]
[…] he could implement detente with Castro and reform the Agency in the wake of the Bay of Pigs disaster. The Warren Commission attempted to conceal this treasonous coup behind the lone gunman theory but the truth was smoked out by New Orleans D.A. Jim Garrison in his abortive prosecution of Clay Shaw. Garrison was […]
[…] the left. His very interesting article on the CIA (and wider American) role in the politics of the Soviet bloc countries post 1991, ‘The Technique of a coup d’etat’, ends with this sentence: ‘But, after Marshall’s exposé of the reality behind the almost identical events in Serbia, there can be no doubt that the […]
[…] institutions of popular power and workers control, and repressing the revolutionary left. The moment of realisation occurred in May 1937 in Barcelona when the Communists staged their coup against anarchist control of the city. Up to then Orwell had been determined to transfer from the POUM militia to the Communist-controlled International Brigades. Now he […]
[…] Then Kennedy had to face down the military over Cuba. No wonder Kennedy let John Frankenheimer use the White House to shoot his movie about a military coup, 7 Days in May. Finally: readers of a delicate ideological disposition should note that Pepper is a gloriously unreconstructed lefty and there are a couple of […]
Empires Apart: America And Russia From The Vikings To Iraq Brian Landers Hove: Picnic Publishing, 2009, £15, p/b Is America an empire? Tsarist Russia and its Soviet successor were certainly seen as such through western eyes. That America is not showing the heavily ideologised world through which we frame history. In a bold sweep … Read more
